Marine navigation is the art and science of steering a ship from a starting point (sailing) to a destination, efficiently and responsibly. It is an art because of the skill that the navigator must have to avoid the dangers of navigation, and it is a science because it is based on physics, mathematical, oceanographic, cartographic, astronomical, and other knowledge.
Marine navigation can be surface or submarine.
Etymology
Navigation (from the
Latin word
navigatio) is the act of sailing or voyaging. Nautical (from Latin
nautĭca, and this from
Greek language ναυτική τέχνη
nautikḗ téjne "art sailing" and from ναύτης
nautes "sailor") is that pertaining to navigation and the science and art of sailing. Naval (from the Latin adjective
navalis) is that relating to ships and navigation, or particularly to the
navy.
[: theory and practice of charting a course for a ship, aircraft or spaceship. : Relating to or involving ships or shipping or navigation or seamen. : ( nautical) Of or relating to ships in general.]
In Ancient Rome, the navicularii conducted long-distance trade by sea.
History
Cabotage was practiced since the most ancient times.
The biblical account of
Flood myth, where the Noah's Ark appears, is based both on myths and on the navigational practice of the
Mesopotamia, who from the
Sumerians onwards navigated their two rivers (
Tigris and
Euphrates) and the
Persian Gulf. The
did not limit themselves to inland navigation of the
Nile either, and used the Mediterranean sea routes existing since the
Neolithic — through which cultural phenomena such as
or the metallurgy would have spread for millennia. The
Crete even established a true
thalassocracy (government of the seas, attributed to King
Minos) until the
Mycenaean Greece (2nd millennium BC), when the events mythologized in the
Homer[More than a thousand "concave ships" Trojan War, bad fortune of the navigator Odysseus and the expertise of the "Argonauts" — among whom is the builder of the ship that bears his name, Argus] ought to be placed.The
Hittites, led by King Šuppiluliuma II faced the
Cyprus in the first historically recorded
Naval warfare (ca. 1210 BC); at the same time, all the civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean suffered from the incursions of the denominated "
Sea Peoples".
The — whom the Greeks considered their masters in navigation and who are also cited in the Bible —[Ships from Tyre supplied King Solomon with goods from distant places, including Tarshish — Tartessos — to the same destination a Phoenician ship was carrying Jonah, until the crew threw him into the sea when they blamed him for the storm that threatened to sink them.]
File:Musée de l'Arles antique, Arles, France (16006774188).jpg|Remains of a 1st-century Gallo-Roman ship archaeologically named Arles Rhône 3.
File:Dictionary of Roman Coins.1889 P381S0 illus385.gif|Roman ship depicted on a coin.
File:Phoenician ship.jpg|Relief of a 2nd-century sarcophagus representing a "gauloi", a trading ship.
File:Bait Al Baranda Museum-Naval battle.JPG|Model depicting a naval confrontation between a Roman ship and Omani ships in the Indian Ocean, 2nd century.
In the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean oceans, the oceanic navigations made it possible to populate all the archipelagoes (Polynesian navigation). However, the possibility of reaching South America is still a matter of debate — the settlement of the Americas through the Bering Strait would not have required navigation, or in any case, coastal navigation would have sufficed — as well as other possible pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts. In the first quarter of the 15th century, the Chinese expeditions led by Zheng He reached the African coasts of the Indian Ocean. It has been that they might have reached the South Atlantic and even America and Europe, but this proposal has not been accepted beyond mere speculation.Mediterranean navigation, which the Romans had come to control (undisputed Mare Nostrum since their victories over the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars 264-146, the Egyptians during the Battle of Actium 31, and Piracy), was once again a contested environment in the Middle Ages, from the moment the Vandals managed to attack the Italian coasts from the sea. In the 6th century, the Byzantine Empire managed to regain control, and in the 7th century it was the Arab world who ended up dividing the Mediterranean area,[Venetian navy] Genoese[Genoese navy] and Crown of Aragon[ Diccionario enciclopédico popular ilustrado Salvat (1906-1914)] The conjunction of "cannons and sails" has been argued to have given European states the advantage to prevail over the rest,[Cipolla, Carlo Maria, Cañones y velas en la primera fase de la expansión europea, 1967.] launching the modern "world system".[Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallenstein.]
File:The Four Voyages of Columbus 1492-1503 - Project Gutenberg etext 18571.jpg|Navigation of Columbus' four voyages to America, 1492–1504.
File:Gama route 1.svg|Navigation of Vasco de Gama first voyage, 1498.
File:Detail from a map of Ortelius - Magellan's ship Victoria.png|The Victoria, ship of the Magellan-Elcano expedition (1519-1521), in an illustration of a map by Abraham Ortelius, 1590.
File:Museo Marítim de Barcelona Real 17-05-2009 13-09-59.JPG|Model of the galley Real, flagship of the Christian navy in the Battle of Lepanto (1571).
File:Vroom Hendrick Cornelisz Battle of Haarlemmermeer.jpg|Dutch gueux de mer engage the Spanish at the battle of Haarlemmermeer, 1573; painting by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, ca. 1621.
File:Boazio-Sir Francis Drake in Santo Domingo.jpg|Francis Drake's fleet in front of Santo Domingo in 1585.
File:Routes of the Spanish Armada-es.svg|Navigation of the Spanish Armada, 1588.
File:The conquest of the great Northwest; being the story of the Adventurers of England known as The Hudson's Bay Company. New pages in the history of the Canadian Northwest and Western States (1908) (14778654772).jpg|Navigation of Henry Hudson in search of the Northeast Passage, 1607–1608.
File:Wasa, Seitenansicht.jpg| Vasa, flagship of the Swedish navy, sunk on her maiden voyage, 1628.
File:AMH-6135-NA View of Batavia.jpg|Dutch ships of the VOC ( Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, United East India Company) in Batavia (today Jakarta), 1665.
Since the 18th century, England exercised maritime hegemony, a fact that was confirmed in the early 19th century with the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). Among the main English expeditions of the time were James Cook's (1768-1779), also the second expedition of the HMS Beagle (1831-1836) — which was of great importance for the later development of Charles Darwin's Evolution. Already fully in the age of steam navigation, techniques and vessels continued to be perfected in transoceanic sailing (clipper), that did not become obsolete for commercial navigation until the 20th century — especially after the opening of the Panama Canal. Even then, the unbridled optimism that characterized the naval design of the time suffered a severe blow with the sinking of the Titanic (1912).
File:"Toma" de Cartagena por Vernon.jpg|Medal used by the British navy to celebrate the capture of Cartagena de Indias, that did not take place (1741).
File:The Bark, Earl of Pembroke, later Endeavour, leaving Whitby Harbour in 1768 (cropped).jpg| HMS Endeavour (Captain Cook's ship) leaves Whitby harbor in 1768.
File:Francesco Guardi - The Doge on the Bucentaur at San Niccolò del Lido - WGA10850.jpg|Venetian ships (including the Bucentaur) at the feast of the Ascension, painting by Francesco Guardi, ca. 1775.
File:Expédition de La Pérouse.jpg|Expedition of Jean-François de La Perouse, 1785–1788.
File:Slaveshipplan.jpg|Arrangement of a slave ship for the Slavery in 1788. The triangular trade crossing the Atlantic between Europe, Africa and America constituted the most important shipping routes at the time.
File:Descubiertaatrevida.jpg|The Descubierta and the Atrevida in the Philippine island of Samar, during the Malaspina expedition, 1789–1794.
File:Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna 01.svg|Navigations of the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, 1803–1814.
File:Turner, J. M. W. - The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken.jpg| The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, by J. M. W. Turner, 1838.
File:London and the River Thames seen from the south, from Wellcome L0023697.jpg|Active navigation on the Thames in the mid-19th century, in an engraving by Frederick James Smyth. Tall-masted ships crowd downstream, while barges and steamboats with smoking smokestacks are allowed to cross London Bridge.
File:Jack Spurling - ARIEL & TAEPING, China Tea Clippers Race.jpg|The "Ariel" and the "Taeping" contesting the Great Tea Race of 1866, depicted in a painting by Jack Spurling.
File:The destruction of Russian destroyers by Japanese destroyers at Port Arthur.jpg|Naval engagement between Russian and Japanese destroyers at Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904.
File:Aan de Zuidpool - p1913-164-1.jpg|Roald Amundsen expedition to the South Pole, 1913.
File:Stöwer U-Boot Truppentransporter.jpg|Sinking of an enemy ship by a German "U-boat" in 1917. In addition to submarine warfare, Submarine have had all sorts of uses, including mail,
File:The Royal Navy during the Second World War- Operation Overlord (the Normandy Landings)- D-day 6 June 1944 A24096.jpg|The Operation Overlord (June 1944) was the largest naval operation in history, in a relatively small maritime environment (the English Channel).
File:USS Flint (CL-97) at anchor in March 1945 (80-G-K-3813).jpg|The United States Fifth Fleet departs for Okinawa in March 1945, in the final stages of the War of the Pacific.
Contemporary shipping has massively ceased to perform one of its traditional functions and has been replaced by aviation, such as Transport, although with two important exceptions: leisure travel (tourism by ) and irregular traffic of people (irregular immigration). Since the Second Industrial Revolution, the main volume of freight transport has been hydrocarbons ( and Gas carrier). Other raw materials are also transported in Bulk cargo on , but from 1956 onward, a large part of goods of all kinds were adapted to standardized that speed up loading and unloading, allowing a combination with land transport (Transport hub). Highly technological navigation has reduced crews and increased the size of ships. For example, in Fishing, which locates its prey with sophisticated means and lasts indefinitely in time — freezer ships or — which in some circumstances has made them vulnerable to new forms of piracy.
File:Calypso51-73.jpg|Routes of the RV Calypso, research ship of Jacques Cousteau.
File:Port Havre 2.jpg|Cargo vessel using the appropriate facilities for container traffic () at the port of Le Havre.
File:Cayuco approached by a spanish Salvamar vessel.jpg|Boat overloaded with illegal immigrants, alongside a Spanish coast guard.
Methods and techniques
These are the methods used in maritime navigation to solve the three problems of the navigator:
-
Determining and maintaining the "course".
-
Determining the "time", the "speed" and "distance", for the duration of the voyage.
-
Knowing the "depth" in which one is sailing so as not to run aground.
Coastal navigation
Navigation and location of the ship by positioning techniques based on the observation of bearings and distances to notable points on the coast (
, capes,
, etc.) by visual means (pelorus), observation of horizontal angles (
sextant) or electronic methods (bearings from
radar to
Radar beacon,
, etc.)
Dead reckoning navigation
Navigation and location of the ship by analytical means, after considering the following elements: initial location, bearing(s) — whether absolute bearings, surface bearings, or relative bearings. Also
velocity as well as the external factors that have influenced the course either partially or entirely, such as the
wind (
leeway) and/or the
Ocean current (bearing of the current and hourly current intensity). The point obtained from the calculations is called the "Dead reckoning location", with its corresponding
latitude and
longitude. This point is also known as Fantasy point.
Loxodromic navigation
Navigation that follows a
rhumb line — that is, all meridians are cut at the same angle. On a
nautical chart following the Mercator projection, a loxodromic is represented by a straight line.
This type of navigation is useful for not too long distances, as it allows the course to remain steady,
Orthodromic navigation
Navigation that follows the shortest distance between two points, i.e., that which follows a
great circle. Such routes yield the shortest
distance between two points on the globe.
To calculate the bearing and distance between two points it is necessary to solve a spherical triangle whose vertices are the origin, the destination, and the pole.
Celestial navigation
Navigation and location of the ship by
geopositioning techniques based on the observation of the
and other celestial bodies. The variables measured to find the location are: the observed angular height of the stars above the
horizon, measured with the
sextant (formerly with the
astrolabe or other instrument), and the
time, measured with the
Clock.
Conceptually, the process is not complex to understand:
-
Knowing the time of the observation, and with the data contained in the nautical calendar, it is possible to determine the astronomical coordinates of the observed star.
-
Knowing the coordinates of the observed star and the height above the horizon with which it was observed, we can deduce that the observer's position is located on a circle whose center is located at the geographical point directly below the star.
-
Any observer located at any point on that circle will observe the star with the same height above the horizon.
-
The observer can therefore know that his position is somewhere on this circle.
In practice, the mathematical process, called "reduction" of the observation, can be complex for the uninitiated. To the height observed with the sextant, it is necessary to apply a series of corrections to compensate for atmospheric refraction, parallax and other errors. Once this is done, it is necessary to solve a spherical triangle by mathematical and trigonometric methods.
There are many methods to do this. The manual methods use tables (Trigonometry, , etc.) to facilitate the calculations. The introduction of and Computer at the end of the 20th century greatly facilitated the calculation, but the creation of GPS made celestial navigation no longer important, relegating it to the background as an alternative method in case of failure of the on-board electronics or as a hobby of scientific interest.
Electronic navigation
Navigation and location of the ship by positioning techniques based on the aids provided by global positioning systems, such as GPS,
GLONASS, or GALILEO. It is the system most widely spread and easiest to use, in spite of the errors that may arise.
Inertial navigation
Navigation and location of the ship by means of the analysis of the data provided by
and/or
located on board, which integrate the accelerations experienced in complex electronic systems, that converted into velocities (in the 3 possible axes of displacement) and according to the observed courses, make it possible to obtain the location of the ship.
Iconography
The harbinger of a successful navigation was the
dolphin, which is why its representation became the symbol carried by all ships.
More recently, navigation was represented as a woman crowned with Stern whose clothes are agitated by the winds. She rests one hand on a rudder and the other holds the instrument for measuring height. At her feet, the ampoule, the compass, the trident of Neptune and the riches of commerce, while the sea can be seen on the horizon, completed by a lighthouse and traversed by ships at full sail.
See also
-
Age of Sail
-
Bowditch's American Practical Navigator
-
Navigation
-
World Cruising Routes
Notes
External links
